Our New Bathroom

Way back in July, when our bathroom renovation had just begun, I promised to share pictures of the finished room. Well, 7 months late, I’m finally getting around to it.

Our house was built in the early 60s. When we inspected it, I instantly fell in love with the bathroom. It had a purple bath + basin and the most darling floral wall paper. It also had a little room just for a shower - otherwise known as a ‘shower room’ (rather apt, no?). I knew it would need an update at some point, but I wanted to hold off as long as we could. Last year, when then the pipes stopped working, we decided it was time.

Ben and I are soooo not home reno people. We don’t fancy DIY jobs or living in the in-between, and even if we did, we aren’t skilled enough to carry out those sort of projects ourselves. Thankfully we had been planning and saving for the bathroom update for a while. My mother put me onto a carpenter who coordinated the job for us - from the plasterer to the plumber. The only thing we (Ben) did was the painting. Initially I hoped for coloured tiles - perhaps teal (my favourite colour), olive green or pink. Maybe wallpaper, too, as I was quite taken with floral wallpaper at that point. Alas, it was all getting a bit expensive. I also wasn’t sure how much natural light we’d end up having in the space (we were knocking down walls and combining 3 rooms into 1), and I worried dark colours or a pattern wouldn’t look how I’d like (far from the picture-perfect images I’d seen on Pinterest). So, we went with white. Our entire house is very much a white + wood style, which we adore, so it made sense. We also decided to go with brushed gold fittings, as that is the colour used in our ensuite bathroom and again, it just suites the house. The other two major decisions were the bath and shower. I knew I wanted a big, deep bath and Ben knew he wanted a spacious shower (and a heated towel rack). The remaining decisions we made based on what seemed to work well in our space + what was affordable.

7 months in and we are still head over heels in love with our bathroom. As it turns out, the light is rather spectacular. I wanted some greenery, so my mother bought us a beautiful hanging Devil’s Ivy plant, which sits above the bath. I do miss the floral wallpaper from our old bathroom. The retro purple bath, too. As does Joan. When she talks about missing the old bath, I point out that we can like our new space and miss our old one at the same time, and how interesting it is that we can feel lots of different emotions at once.

The new shower and bath are glorious. Before I gave birth to Walt, Joan and I would laze about in our giant bath after dinner for far too long, pretending to have a water birth (her idea) or washing my hair (my idea - I’m teaching her how). The bath doesn’t even need to be filled halfway for it to feel like a spa treatment. When she stops getting soap in my eyes, it’ll be bliss. Now Walt is here, one of our favourite things to do is give him a shower. He sits in his little seat (we borrowed this seat from friends when Joan was young and loved it so much we got a new one for Walt. They’re great and often on sale) and we let the water run on his body. He loves the way it feels and his blissed out expression might just be the cutest thing ever.

Tiles: Beaumont Tiles (forgive me, I can’t recall the name of the two styles we used).

Fixtures: Phoenix (their shower head is amazing!)

Vanity: by ADP

Bath: Halo

Toilet: Gala

Towels: Sheridan

Hanging Pot: Kmart

Heidi xo